Missing and Murdered Aboriginal Women and Girls

Hon. Jim Munson: Honourable senators, my question for the Leader of the Government in the Senate is this: Why is your government so opposed to an inquiry? We’ve asked you over and over again. Why the opposition? It just makes so much sense — to this country, to Aboriginal women, to their families and to all of us — that we have a full public inquiry dealing with this issue. Why are you so opposed?

[Translation]

Hon. Claude Carignan (Leader of the Government): As I said, a number of measures were adopted and more may be adopted in the future. We need to focus on the needs and take meaningful steps to protect female victims of violence and to invest resources in looking for missing Aboriginal women and girls. We have invested a tremendous amount of money in this, and we will continue to do so. We have also talked about domestic violence prevention programs that provide funding to shelters and violence prevention initiatives on reserves. We want to take meaningful action that will have an impact on this issue.